I recently went with my wife and some of the family to see the movie Woodlawn, and I just want to commend that film. It is a wonderful presentation of a true story that points to the true story, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. I was reminded because I was a part of one of the things they talk about in that film, and that was a huge gathering of 100,000 young people in Dallas, Texas, back in 1972. That's back during the previous century, back during the previous millennium. And I was a part of that crowd of 100,000 young people. there in the football stadium and holding up our candles and saying that, yes, we're going to share the good news about Jesus Christ with our world. And it was a marvelous thing to see what God was doing. It was a sovereign work of His grace. All across this country, God was doing amazing things. Multitudes of people, especially young people, were being converted. A time when our country was torn by racial divisions and violence, when lots of young people were addicted to drugs, and a lot of so-called adults were experimenting with drugs as well. A lot of sexual immorality, just rampant sexual immorality in the land. horrible corruption on the part of officials in government. I mean, just like today. And the occult was very popular. Many people were involved in all kinds of occult activities, just like today. And, you know, we look at what's going on now and it's like, well, I guess God's given up on America. And then I remember what was going on back then and see how God supernaturally moved by his spirit, and did what could not be explained in terms of sociological influences. It was God. It was God who worked. And what we're studying and celebrating right now is also a time in history when God showed up in a supernatural way and worked all across the British Isles and in Europe to restore multitudes of people to belief in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. I want to share with you this morning a little bit about Reformation history, because we're gonna be celebrating the Reformation this weekend, and hopefully you've been learning more about the Reformation. But I want you to look with me in 1 Timothy chapter two, 1 Timothy 2, verses 5 and 6. This is a pivotal statement from God's Word that we need to understand and we need to believe. And it helps us understand the watershed between the false religion that had come to dominate much of the world in the name of Christianity, but without being true to Christ, and how God restored the gospel to many people so that they believed in Jesus and trusted in him, and that changed everything. First Timothy chapter two, look at verse five and six. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men, the testimony given in its proper time. How many gods are there? There's one. Well, what about people who believe in other gods? Well, what about people who think they're Napoleon? You can believe anything you want, it doesn't make it so. I can believe that I am an NBA player, doesn't make it so. I could believe that I'm a woman, doesn't make it so. Surgery still wouldn't make it so. I'm not a woman, never will be a woman. I once was a male trapped inside of a female body, but then my mother gave birth to me and It's not original, but it is worth thinking about. God is the one who created all things, and he's the one who determines what's true and what's false. And what we believe only indicates whether or not we're being true to what's true. It doesn't change truth. No matter how many gods people may believe in, if you're a Hindu, you believe in a multitude of gods. But if you know the truth, there's one God. And that one God, by the way, is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That's not three gods. That's one God. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. So there is one God, and how many ways are there to God? How many mediators between God and men? One. One mediator between God and men. And who is that? It is the man Christ Jesus. who gave himself as a ransom, who died in our place. That's what we're studying. That's what we proclaim. That is the basis of our confidence. In John chapter 14, Jesus says in verse 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. No one comes to the Father except through me. Well, what about people who sincerely believe in some other religion? It's not going to get them to God. They're not going to be in heaven. They're not going to be saved unless they come to faith in Jesus Christ. Unless there is God's salvation through Jesus Christ, there's not a plan B. Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, Father, if there's any other way, please let this cup pass from me. There was no other way. There is no other way to be saved. There is no other name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved. No other way. Well, but what if you're really sincere? There is no other way. Jesus is the one mediator between God and man. No one comes to the Father except through me, Jesus said. Some years ago, a friend of mine, Joseph Bailey, was flying on a plane with a very famous writer and scholar, and she said to him, I am really impressed with the things you've been telling me about Jesus, but Is he really the only way to God? And Joe said, I knew where she was coming from. I understood her concerns. And he said, it's not up to me to decide the answer to that question. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. And she said, then I cannot be a Christian. And she didn't become a Christian. Instead, she became a follower of the occult. Tragic. Tragic. But she would rather go full bore into something that is satanic than believe that Jesus is the only way. Let me tell you, if you refuse the exclusive claims of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you're not still a Christian. because you're calling the one who is Lord a liar, in which case he's not your Lord. Jesus said, my sheep know my voice. Well, I think you could be a Christian and still not believe that. Well, then you're welcome to your opinion and we'll find out on the other side. But I don't expect to see you there. And the reason is not because I think I'm better than other people, it's because Jesus said there's no other way. Now if Jesus was wrong about that, why in the world would we follow Jesus as God incarnate? So let's be clear. Let's be very, very clear, because right now there are bunches of people who claim to be evangelical who reject out of hand what Jesus says about himself, about sin, about salvation. We are living in a time of great darkness. And it is imperative that we understand the truth. How many ways are there to God? There's one way. There's one way. That's why I hate to see people using this symbol to try and pretend that they're number one. Jesus is number one. He is the one way. He is the truth. He is the life. He is our only hope. Years ago I was sitting in my wife's grandparents' home and one of her uncles was there with his priest from the Catholic Church in Baton Rouge. They journeyed up to Shreveport together where the grandparents lived. being a member of the family and a member of the clergy, they called on me to say the blessing before the meal. And when I finished praying, my wife's uncle looked at me and tearfully said, it sounded as if you were talking directly to God. And I said, I was. And he said, oh, I wish I could do that. I looked at the priest. The priest is sitting there waiting to see what I'm going to say. And I said, you can. And the priest wanted to find out how to. Because you have within Roman Catholicism, this is not about slamming people, this is about talking truth concerning historic teaching. You have within Roman Catholicism the widespread teaching that you've got to go through other folks, okay? You better not try and talk directly to God. I mean, he's really scary. Should I talk to Jesus? No, you better not do that. I mean, you're just an ordinary person. Let the priest talk to God. You'd be better off talking to Mary. It's his mom, you know? Go to her, maybe one of the saints. Ask them to talk on your behalf, you know? Now let's make this thing sort of silly and close to home. I don't want to talk to my house dad. He scares me. So I was wondering, you're my mentor. Would you talk to my house dad? Well, what do you want me to talk to him about? Well, I'm afraid to tell you. I'm going to have my roommate tell you. Well, this is just a recipe for bad communication, isn't it? I'm going to have my roommate tell my mentor what it is that I would like for her to please tell my house dad because I'm scared of my house dad. Is that the way to deal? Okay. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him would not perish but would have everlasting life. For God didn't send his son into the world to condemn the world, but so that through him the world would be saved. God invites us to come to him. Well, how can I come to him? I'm a sinner. That's why he sent Jesus. Jesus came to save sinners, and he is the mediator between God and men. Because of Jesus, I can now come to God himself, the ruler of the universe, and in Jesus' name, I can talk to Him and in fact when I'm trusting in Him, He not only forgives me, He comes to live in me. The Roman Church did not want people to have Bibles. Why? Why would you not want people to have the Bible in their language? Why would you be opposed to that? I want you to imagine students here at Wears Valley Ranch. If you were told there is a book that contains the rules for how to function here at the ranch, it's called the student handbook, but you cannot have a copy. You are not allowed to have a copy of the student handbook. Because we want to tell you everything you need to know when you need to know it. And if you have questions, you need to come to us. We don't want you to have a book you can look it up in to see what you're supposed to do. That would not be good. We want you to know. We give you a handbook so that you can look in that handbook and see, am I supposed to do this? Am I allowed to do that? What should I expect if I make level two? How old do I have to be to be level three? I'll tell you when you're old enough. No, it's there in the book. We give you that information because we want you to know the truth. But let me tell you, there's responsibility that comes with that. We give you a handbook, we make sure you're able to read, we go over much of it with you, and then you're responsible for it. You can't say, I didn't know. Let's just do a little pop quiz here, OK? If it's not yours, you know what I heard? I heard, don't touch it. You know the answer to that. You said it. Let's say it together. If it's not yours, don't touch it. That's great. Excellent. Well done. Good job. You know that because it's in your handbook. You know what? God has given us something much more wonderful than the student handbook. And God has made people willing to risk their lives and even lose their lives so that we could have this Bible in our language. So that we could know that there is only one God and that there's only one way to God. Because there are people who don't want you to know that. They want you to think that they're the way to God, that you've got to come through them. Go through Mary, go through the priest, go through the sacraments. You do what we say, and then maybe you'll make it. I want you to understand that if that lie and that packet of lies had been allowed to continue unchecked, unchallenged, What we would have today is a system like we had back before the Reformation, where people not only didn't know the Gospel, but they didn't have options as far as government, as far as career, as far as where to worship. Our political freedoms in the West are grounded in the Reformation. Our economic freedom in the West is grounded in the Reformation. Our religious freedom in the West is grounded in the Reformation. Our freedom in the West is grounded in the Reformation. And so if you appreciate being able to decide Whether you want to go to this church, or this church, or this church, or that church, or that church, as opposed to being told, you live in this area, you go to this church, then you can thank God for the reformers. If you like the fact that the preacher can decide, I'm preaching from 1 Timothy 2 today, as opposed to having to look on the calendar and see what somebody else decided he's supposed to preach on that day, then you need to thank God for the reformers. If you like the fact that when it comes to choosing career or choosing how businesses are going to be set up, you don't have to go through the institutional church to get that done, then you need to thank God for the reformers. If you like the idea of having a government that is brought together by the people to govern themselves, then you need to thank God for the Reformers. because God moved supernaturally in a window of time in order to change things very dramatically. This morning I want to talk about a few of the folks who were part of that. I believe that earlier this week you learned about Wycliffe, the morning star of the Reformation. He was the guy out there before other people were saying it. He was raised up by God to tell the truth. And do you know what it was that changed everything for Wycliffe? What did God use? The Bible. God used His Word. His Word is truth. Look at 2 Timothy 3 Oh, 14 and following. Paul's writing to Timothy and he says, but as for you, continue in what you've learned and become convinced of because you know those from whom you learned it and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures. What did you say? How from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures. When do we start teaching the Bible to children? Right at the start. right at the beginning, before they can speak, you speak truth to them. Have you ever seen a parent go in and say to a child, I love you, and the other parent says, oh, don't say that, they don't understand those words? Of course not. We tell children I love you before they know how to talk. And they learn what that means. That's the way we teach the scriptures. We speak the truth and teach the scriptures, even to little ones, and gradually they learn. You know one of the things I love about teaching here at St. Andrews School at Wears Valley Ranch? I talk to you children as if you care about grown-up stuff. Here we are talking about the authority of scripture, about the fact that there's only one mediator between God and man, about the fact that our freedoms today are grounded in the sacrifice of the reformers half a millennium ago. Stuff that happened in history still matters today, because you and I are living lives that are different because of what others who lived before us did. I love that, getting to teach kids about things that you are ready to learn, even though some grownups don't think you are, okay? And I want you to understand, from infancy, Timothy was taught the scriptures, the holy scriptures, that is the writings that belong to God, they're set apart by Him, which are able to make you wise for salvation. The Scriptures are able to make you wise for the purpose of salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. What the Scriptures do is point you to Him so that you trust in Him, so that you have salvation in Him. Now look at verse 16. All Scripture, talking about the Bible, all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. That's why it is essential that people have the Bible in their own languages so they can learn it, study it, and put it into practice. God's Word changes us. Wycliffe knew that, he understood that, and as a result of his study of the Scriptures, he embraced solid, true doctrine. And it changed everything. One of the people that changed was the one we call John Huss. Jan Hus. I've seen the monument to that martyr there in Prague in the Czech Republic. He was burned alive by order of the Church of Rome. And they used Wycliffe's writings to light the fire. That's how much they hated Haas. for telling the truth, for preaching the gospel, for teaching the scriptures. And it's how much they hated Wycliffe for having written so profoundly that people learned to study the scriptures way over there in Bohemia, as it was called. And so they took Wycliffe's writings and used it, lit them on fire and used that to light the fire that they built all around Jan Hus. As he died, he sang, Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me. But it's also reported that he said something. He said within a hundred years, God will raise up a man whose reformation, his efforts at reform cannot be stopped. And a hundred years later, almost exactly 100 years later, a fellow by the name of Martin Luther in Germany, was raised up by God to do exactly that. Luther saw what was going on in the church and it was evil. He saw that the people were being lied to and exploited because the church, for one thing, had a huge building program going down in Rome. And so in order to raise money, they told people they could get their loved ones out of suffering, their dead loved ones, people who died. Isn't it awful to think of them suffering? Your poor mother, don't you love your mother? Don't you care about her? Do you want to think about her suffering? You can get her out of suffering in a place called purgatory. You can get her out of there if you will put money here in this box. The Pope can issue an indulgence you give us money, we'll give you a piece of paper that says on the authority of the ruler of the church, the Pope, that your relative gets out. If you pay enough, if you don't have enough, just pay what you can and it'll reduce the amount of suffering your loved one has to go through. If you're able to come up with the full amount, we can get them out now. Just think we could get your mother out of suffering and on into heaven if you just come up with the money. Don't you love your mother that much? You recently lost a grandparent. Think of how You love that person. Wouldn't you be willing to give your savings in order to get them out of suffering? I mean, this is the kind of exploitive lie that was being used to raise money for an extravagant building in Rome. Now, is that evil? You better believe it's evil. It would be evil if they were raising the money to feed the poor, but they weren't. They were raising the money from the poor to feed the rich down in Rome. Luther was so angry that he wrote up a list of 95 statements concerning the lies that the Roman church was telling, and he nailed them to the local bulletin board, which was the door of the church. He was a priest of that church. He was not a vandal. He was a servant of God. And the thing that had changed his perspective was that he'd finally gotten to read the Bible after years of being a Roman Catholic, after years of being a priest. But you see, most of the priests didn't get to read the Bible. Just like lots of preachers today. I was talking with a fellow this past weekend who said that he asked a series of pastors if they had ever read the entire Bible. Have you ever read the whole thing? And he said to his surprise, all the ones he asked said no. And he turned to me, he said, have you read the Bible all the way through? And I said, yes, absolutely, many times. Well, that doesn't make me great. This is great. God's Word is great. And you ought to read the Bible all the way through. I'm not a pastor. You don't have to be a pastor. You're a follower of God. This is His Word. Study His Word. That's why we have devotions here together. That's why we emphasize the study of God's Word. Luther had read the scriptures, and as he read the scriptures, he saw that what was being taught in the churches was a lie. And it was evil. And so he put up this challenge, inviting anybody to debate him. And he said in that list of challenges, he said, I don't believe the Pope is really in favor of this. He said, this guy says he's here representing the Pope. He said, I don't believe that the Pope could possibly be approving of this kind of lie. He was wrong. Now let me tell you something, God used a very imperfect man named Martin Luther. Luther wasn't perfect. But he knew the importance of the truth. And he knew the power of the scriptures. And so one of the biggest projects of his life was to translate the scriptures into the German language so that the people of Germany would have a Bible so they could read for themselves and see, is this right or is this wrong? Is this true or is this false? Why wouldn't everybody want folks to have Bibles? In my lifetime, and I know I'm old, but I'm not as old as some people. In my lifetime, I remember my friends in the Roman Catholic Church being told by their priest, you don't need a Bible. You don't need to read the Bible. You just come to church. It's in my lifetime that Vatican II took place and the Roman Catholic Church finally said, OK, we're going to start doing Mass in the language of the people. Up to then, the Mass was in Latin. Why? Because they didn't want people to understand what was being said. That's not some hate speech on the part of Protestants. That's history, and I lived through it. If you don't believe me, do your research. Roman Catholic friends out there, check it out. And ask yourself the question, why would the Catholic Church not want me to know my Bible? Thank God it's gotten better. And you know, there are some wonderful Christians in the Roman Catholic Church who are trusting in Jesus Christ and in Him alone for their salvation and teaching the truth of the gospel and encouraging people to study their Bibles. I am not a hater and I'm not anti-Catholic, but I am pro-Jesus. And the way you know what Jesus says is you read your Bible. One of my radio listeners wrote to me and said, you know, my husband is really convinced of Roman Catholicism and wants me to only use the Catholic Bible in teaching our children. What should I do? I said, use the Catholic Bible. Use the Catholic Bible. I'm not telling you, no, you have to have one of our Bibles. No, use your Bible. Whenever I try and share the gospel with a Roman Catholic person, I don't say, well, here, look in my Bible. I say, have you got your Bible? Let's look in your Bible and see what it says. You know what it says? It says the truth. It says there's one God and one mediator between God and man. It says Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. It says there's no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. It says that our salvation is by grace through faith. And that not of yourselves, it's not a result of works, lest any man should boast. It says that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him would not perish, would have everlasting life. The church in Rome is still teaching people it is presumptuous to say that you know you're saved. But, their Bible, 1 John, tells us these things have been written so that you may know that you have eternal life. So that you may know that you have eternal life. So, Tyndale, in England, came along and said, here's the Bible. And they killed him for it. The Roman church killed him. Why? Because they didn't want people to have Bibles that they could read and understand. Zwingli, greatly, greatly used by God. Much of what we believe today is largely in line with Zwingli. Zwingli was a pastor. Died in battle at age 47. What was he fighting over? Well, he was fighting to stand for the truth against those who were trying to suppress it. But let me tell you, as I already mentioned, these were not perfect people. Conrad Grebel, Felix Banz were among the early Anabaptists in Zurich, and Zwingli opposed them to the point of sanctioning their death. Why? Because they were studying the scriptures, and in doing so, they had realized, oh, So baptism should be believers. And Zwingli said, absolutely not, you're causing division. And so, Manns was drowned as a way of publicly humiliating the Baptists. And he was just the first of many. Luther did his thing in Germany, but God had arranged for the invention of the printing press. And so Luther's writings and many other Protestant reformed writings got spread all over Europe and England, and it became unstoppable. Another fellow that you want to learn about, I hope, is a man by the name of John Calvin. From France, most of his ministry in Switzerland, God used his writings, his teachings to impact people all over the world still today. Fellas like Melanchthon, much more thoughtful and balanced, you might say, than Luther, not as famous, but used by God to spread the word and solidify Protestant teaching. Folks like Henry VIII, British king, bad man, used by God to break the United Kingdom away from the Church of Rome. Bad man, used by God. John Knox in Scotland. All these people you see a mixture of motives and people with feet of clay. But God used them in order to make it possible for us to have the Bible in our own language. and see for ourselves that the gospel is true, and that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him. So this weekend when we celebrate the Reformation, we're celebrating something that happened a long time ago, but it absolutely changed the way that we live today, and we need to be grateful. and we need to celebrate. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for loving us. Thank you that we don't have to be perfect in order for you to use us. But thank you, Lord God, that in Christ Jesus, we have one who is perfect. And that in the scriptures, we have truth that is perfect, whole, complete, alive, powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword, changing lives even today. Help us, Lord, to believe, to trust completely in Jesus. And we'll give you the praise, for we pray in his name. Amen.